Adventues in Australia: #4

August 28, 2007

Though sh-t weather was anticipated for the first official riding day of Stylewars ’07 at Falls Creek, Australia; we were instead greeted in the morning with bluebird skies and a bit of wind but not enough to deter anyone from the well-chiseled hip and a triple jump line that was awaiting some serious sending.

Riders got to dropping into the triple line sharply at nine a.m. The atmosphere was very relaxed, and if anyone wanted their run judged all they had to do was let the judges know, if not that’s cool too. Torstein Horgmo rolled out a front five followed by super clean back to back nines—switch back to frontside. And the New Zealand hammer Jacob Koia layed out switch back seven, cab five, back three double shifty. Stylewars is about jsut that style not necessarily rotations, and Koia had just that much more of it, moving him into first place.

With the warm-ups and the jump line out of the way, it was time to get down to business. The hip was the second feature being judged for the day, but while that was being cleaned up for the session, the 120-footer saw a bit of action as well. Quentin Robbins lofted a huge backside 360 over the beast, and followed that up with a backside 540 but as he put down the landing gear blind he managed to hit the exact coordinates of the jump’s knuckle. A loud crack rang through the valley as Quentin bounced off the knuckle. His board was broken but Quentin walked away seemingly unscathed. In other massive jump news, our boy Dustin Craven tossed his carcass off the corner of the jump’s lip and into the chunder-filled side of the tranny. I may as well have been the only one watching ’cause I don’t think anyone was taking a photo, Dustin just did it in the name of fun.

The hip session got underway while we were off on another chair, but we could see riders hitting it, they were ant size but they were going big—that was apparent from a mile away. It was also apparent that a couple of them decked out super hard. Without decking, the landing was still a bit flat, and the lip was practically vert sending fools into orbit.

Once we made our way back, it was on and popping. Dustin Craven and Sam Luebke were lapping and killing it. As were some of the days other standouts like Jake Koia and Logan Short; Mikey Williams; Nick Gregory; Robbie Walker; Jonas Carlson and Torstein Horgmo. Craven and Luebke were getting the most amplitude, and Torstein was getting the most technical with textbook backside 720s.

Still three days left at Falls and three days left at Stylewars, we’ll check back in tomorrow with some more OZ Action.